I’m guessing from time to time many of us feel like God doesn’t even know we exist, let alone loves us or wants to be involved in our lives. Or maybe we have followed him – done all the right things and it seems he is deaf to our cries and unaware of our struggles. I know it’s the reason some give up on faith. ‘I tried… but I just couldn’t connect… couldn’t hear him, feel him and so on…’

No amount of reasoning, logic and philosophising can replace a tangible experience of a relational God. At some point, in some way we need to encounter God – personally – in a way we can remember and come back to – otherwise the whole ‘relationship with God’ thing just sounds like a very hollow mantra.

I try to spend the first 30 minutes or so of each day reading the Bible, meditating and praying, and I probably have as many ‘significant’ days where I sense God in the words of the story, as I do ‘insignificant’, where it feels like God didn’t show up, or maybe he was tired too…

Lately I’ve been reading Genesis which doesn’t really sound like a book that is easy to engage with reflectively, but its actually been great, especially for reminding me of how much I just haven’t yet got a hold of.

I was disturbed again by God’s shoddy treatment of Cain – because his offering wasn’t up to scratch, I was puzzled again by the whole Babel story (I should have this one under wraps by now right?…) and there have been enough of these bizarre incidents that I’m thinking one day I might just do a sermon series on ‘all the stuff I still don’t understand’.

But this morning I did understand what I was reading and it was worth sharing, so here goes…

Abram and his wife Sarai have been in Canaan 10 years and still no child as promised… I agree with Sarai that 10 years is a fair wait. Its not like she didn’t give God a fair crack to deliver the much promised child. Surely we would also be thinking ‘we heard God wrong’, or whatever the ‘explanatory language’ is that your tribe uses.

So she tells Abram to get it on with Hagar and hopefully that will bring a child into the world. I know Genesis 30:1-3 is credited with being the basis for the Handmaid’s Tale, but I think this passage suggests Hagar might be the original ‘handmaid’, not that she wanted that ‘honour’.

So Abram sleeps with Hagar, she gets pregnant, despises Sarai who then gets down on her and as a result she does a runner. She is an Egyptian slave, used as a baby incubator and now pregnant and on the run from her mistress with whom she is in conflict. – not a happy place to be. She is hiding in the desert when an angel shows up to speak to her.

Ok – so what mental image came to mind when I just said angel? Hold that thought for later.

Its documented as a very brief encounter, but essentially it’s a conversation between the angel and Hagar, where he acknowledges her plight and tells she will have a son named Ishmael – for whom things won’t go so well.

But it’s the next section that is significant, where she reflects on what has happened. She realises she is not alone in the world as this God ‘sees her’.

¹³ She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” 

That was enough for her – to know that God ‘sees her‘ and to know that he is aware of what is going on. I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that it seems God has forgotten them, or his silence is destroying them. I wonder why he doesn’t show up more often like this – in the form of an angel – and just put the doubts to rest.

Or maybe he does – maybe angels aren’t glowing white with wings, but are just other people – ordinary people even – sent by God to let us know that he ‘sees us’, he hasn’t forgotten us and he is not looking away.

Interestingly it doesn’t answer all the ‘why’ questions that Hagar must have had at being used as a baby machine, but it does just say ‘I am with you’ and I have not forgotten you.

Maybe that’s enough.

God sees you.